“I’d like a lawyer,” I said.
After that, everything fell like dominoes. A formal police investigation began, Mr. Gurlain suspended me, and I was assigned a public defender who told me I’d likely be charged with involuntary manslaughter at best and homicide at worst if the police thought I forced those pills on my mother. He recommended I take whatever plea deal they offered. The last domino—the final straw for my father—was when the investigation made the front page of the local newspaper.
Police Suspect Daughter Caused Mother’s Fatal Overdose
In the end, though, there was no way to prove I left those pills out on purpose or that I made my mother take them. I have no doubt that lack of proof is the sole reason I’m walking free today. I know Detective Vick thinks I’m responsible. Everyone does.
“Including my father,” I tell Lenora after giving her my sad story as I lifted her from the tub, toweled her off, put her in a clean nightgown and fresh adult diaper, and tucked her into bed. “He might never speak to me again. That’s why I’m here instead of there.”
I collect her medication from the nightstand and drop the bottles into the lockbox, which then goes back under my bed. Even though there’s no way Lenora could reach them on the nightstand, I can’t be too cautious. Not after what happened with my mother.
Back in Lenora’s room, I place the red call button next to her left hand so she can easily use it.
“I’ll be right next door if you need me,” I say, which is what I also told my mother every night I was caring for her.
Lenora looks up at me, apprehension dulling her green eyes. My stomach clenches as I realize what it means.
Even she thinks I’m guilty.
I guess that makes us even.
My birthday dinner was unbearable. Such an unhappy affair, despite all the effort put into it. There was spring lamb, leek soup, and potatoes roasted in rosemary.
The dinner was attended by only me, Miss Baker, my father, my sister, and a special guest at her request--Peter. Although there was a place setting for my mother, she sent her maid to inform us that she felt too weak to come down to dinner.
For dessert, the kitchen staff wheeled in a massive three-tiered cake with pink frosting and birthday candles ablaze. I tried to appear enthusiastic as I blew them out. I truly did. But since everything felt so awful, I couldn’t quite manage it.
Not that anyone noticed. My sister was preoccupied by flirting with Peter and my father was too busy ogling the newest maid, Sally. I could have grabbed a handful of cake and shoved it into my mouth and only stern Miss Baker would have batted an eye.
After dinner, I went upstairs to see my mother. She was in bed, of course, the duvet pulled to her chest. She looked so small and pitiful that it was hard to believe she had once been a great beauty.
“The most beautiful girl in Boston,” my father liked to boast back when my sister and I were younger and my parents had at least pretended to love each other.
I know he was telling the truth. In her youth, my mother had been astoundingly beautiful. It didn’t hurt that she also hailed from one of the wealthiest families in New England. That fact, combined with her good looks, made her irresistible to my father, who was New Money through and through. A striver of unchecked ambition, he set his sights on Evangeline Staunton.
It didn’t matter that all of Boston whispered about how she had taken up with one of the servants, scandalizing her family and edging herself to the brink of being disowned. My father still pursued her with vigor.
My mother, of course, enjoyed the attention. More than once, I’d heard her described as a rose blossoming in sunlight. My father’s sun must have shone bright, because in a matter of weeks they wed. My mother got pregnant immediately after and my father built Hope’s End.
Years later, when his attention began to wane, my mother--like any flower removed from the light--withered. There was nothing roselike about her the night of my birthday. Pale, shriveled, and thin to the point of gauntness, she was all thorns.
“Hello, my darling,” she said, using the term of endearment meant only for me. My sister and I each had one, chosen by our parents the day we were born. My sister was dear. I was darling.
Although that night, my mother murmured it in a way that made me unsure if she was addressing me or the brown bottle of liquid resting on the pillow next to her.
Laudanum.
Her cure-all, although as far as I could tell, it cured nothing.
“Did you have a happy birthday?”
Certain it was indeed me she was talking to, I lied and told her that I did.
“I do wish we could have celebrated it in Boston,” my mother said.
As did I. To me, Boston was another universe I was only allowed to enjoy once a year before being whisked back to the banality of Hope’s End. It had everything this place didn’t. Restaurants and shops, theaters and cinemas. The last time we visited was right after Christmas. I tasted champagne for the first time, rode a swan boat in Boston Common, went to the movies, and saw Mickey Mouse in “Steamboat Willie.” I couldn’t wait to return.
“Perhaps my next birthday,” I said hopefully.
My mother gave a sleepy nod and said, “There’s a gift for you over there. Just a little token from your father and I.”
On the dresser was a small box in pink paper and blue ribbon. Inside was a small snow globe with a miniature Eiffel Tower rising above a row of tiny mansard roofs.
“Shake it,” my mother said, and I did, sending tiny gold flakes spinning around inside the globe.
“I so wanted to take you girls to Paris,” my mother said, as if such a journey were no longer possible. “Promise me you’ll go one day.”
I gripped the snow globe tight and nodded.
“Go to Paris and fall in love, then write all about it. I know how much you love to write. Write down all your thoughts and hopes and dreams as you go on grand adventures. Promise me you’ll do that, my darling. Promise me you won’t remain here.”
“I promise,” I said.
My mother began to cry then. Openly weeping, she reached for the laudanum and lifted the bottle to her lips.
I left just before she began to gulp it down.
NINE
I’m not surprised to discover that there’s no TV in my room, either. I’ve seen enough of Hope’s End to know it exists mostly in the past, from the antique box of a phone I spotted in the kitchen to the old-timey toilet in my bathroom, which can only be flushed by yanking a pull cord. While I don’t mind not having a TV—I never watched much anyway—I am glad I brought plenty of books.
I set the box of them on the floor and open it up, wondering if I have the energy to try to cram them onto the already-full bookshelf. Spending the day caring for Lenora while subconsciously overcompensating for the leaning house has left me feeling sore and exhausted. Being a caregiver is hard work. It uses muscles you never know you have until that first day spent with your first patient.
Or maybe it was talking about my mother that’s left me exhausted. It usually does. Speaking about what happened gives weight to the bad memories, making them feel raw and recent. Right now, I’m so burdened by them that instead of unpacking the box and my suitcase, I’m tempted to collapse into bed and not wake until the sunrise peeks over the horizon. But then I hear a sharp rap on my bedroom door. Mrs. Baker, I assume, ready to either criticize, chastise, or inform me of something else I need to do.
Instead, it’s Jessica I find standing in the hall. Gone is her uniform, which has been replaced by stirrup pants and an oversize Madonna T-shirt. The jewelry remains, however, jangling as she offers a happy wave.
“Hi,” she says. “It’s Kit, right?”
“Right. And you’re Jessica.”
“Jessie. Only Mrs. Baker calls me Jessica.” She starts fiddling with one of her bracelets. “Anyhoo, I just wanted to officially welcome you to Hope’s End. The name fits, by the way. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
I force a smile, even though her joke is more alarming than amusing. For the umpteenth time that day, I wonder what, exactly, I’ve gotten myself into.
“You settling in okay?” Jessie asks.
“Trying to.” I gesture to the suitcase on my bed and the box of books on the floor. “I haven’t had a chance to unpack yet. Lenora—Miss Hope—kept me very busy today.”
“You can drop the whole Miss Hope act around me. It’s only Mrs. Baker who cares about that.” Jessie puts her hands behind her back and stands on her tiptoes. “But since you’ve been busy, I guess you don’t feel like getting a tour of the house now.”
“Mrs. Baker already showed me around.”
“This is an unofficial tour,” Jessie says. “The murder tour. Mary did it for me when I first got here. She said it was good to know where everything went down that night. Who died where. That kind of thing.”